Meditation Is An Event

Transcript

Welcome, beautiful thinkers!

I’d like to talk to you about the idea that meditation is an event.

I’m here in Acapulco.

And I remembered this time to bring my meditation clothes, I like to wear these white pants and a white shirt to sit in meditation.

When I was reading, Baba Muktananda’s Spiritual Autobiography, play of consciousness.

He mentions these things.

In one chapter, he says, well, many times in the book, he says, “I bathed myself. And then I sat for meditation.”

And he says, things like, “In his own home, he has a room, especially for meditation. But if you don’t have had, then make sure you have a place and make sure you can rest for meditation.”

And when I read that, while the first time I thought, “Oh, maybe it’s not such a big deal or something like that.” The second time, I thought, “Okay, I’m going to take these words, seriously.”

So I started, most days at least, putting on my suit, or pulling on my clothes for meditation.

And making sure I bathed before meditation, to get ready for the event, to treat it as something serious.

When I was in a temple, in Thailand, In Wat Tham Krabok, many people would come in the evening for the chanting, to hear the monks singing these words from Luang Por Yai.

And they would bow before the Buddha and show their respect.

Now in the Buddhist tradition, perhaps it sounds a little strange at first.

Meditation is good karma.

The reason it might sound strange, is because meditation is doing nothing, in a sense.

Just sitting there trying to see what’s going on inside of you.

And from a Western perspective, who might say, well, doesn’t the karma come later when you actually act?

I mean, that’s what karma means, means action.

But the act of sitting and doing nothing is enough for merit, the act of looking inside, finding out what’s going on in there, allowing some surface level thoughts pass, finding out what lies beneath.

That is an act.

It’s an action.

It evokes good karma.

Just by introspecting and contemplating, meditating.

Meditation is something serious.

Many times in meditation, when I finish a session, a little voice comes to me as, “Thanking God. Saying a little prayer, thanking myself for taking the initiative, thaking that divine part of myself, that entirety of myself for taking the time to sit for meditation.”

And this little voice says to me, “thank you”.

Because what you’re doing is more valuable, than you ever know, than you will ever know.

There is some grand mystery, some wonderful thing, some wonderful exposure, of secrets, of subtlety, that begins to come to life when we meditate.

This is something special and maybe we will never know how special it really is.

Meditation is an event.